MELISSA WHITLER | NBCU Fellow
Melissa@DallasVoice.com
Anime Frontier, held Dec. 6-8 at the Fort Worth Convention Center, welcomed thousands of anime fans to Cowtown for a weekend filled with fun, cosplay and panels. The exhibition hall featured more than a hundred booths, with local vendors as well as sponsors and other attractions.
The first ever Anime Frontier happened in 2021, and the annual event has continued to grow since then, with more than 40,000 badges sold this year.
For first-time con-goers, the sheer size of the event and the crowd can seem intimidating, but you quickly adapt. Anime Frontier fostered a very open and inclusive atmosphere, where people of all ages could come enjoy the event.
The convention space included a sensory-friendly room as well as gender neutral bathrooms and accessibility accommodation including seating, allowing service animals and elevator access to the second floor. The staff was incredibly helpful, making sure everyone had a safe and enjoyable time.
No matter what your interests, the convention offered something for you. As a first time con-goer and someone who has only watched a few different anime series over the years, I was a little concerned about sticking out, but that wasn’t a problem at all. There were many impressive cosplayers, but there were just as many people dressed for comfort. People were excited to talk about about what characters they were dressed up as and to pose for photos, and no one questioned anyone’s fandom credentials.
If you’ve never been to Anime Frontier before, the events of the weekend fall into roughly four categories: Panels, fandom meet-ups, exploring the booths and meeting voice actors and creatives. All of this is happening simultaneously, so there is always something to do.
Panel topics included LGBTQ representation in anime and manga, autism in the anime community and auditioning for voice acting roles. Bang Zoom even conducted auditions during the convention.
First time guest Damien Haas, voice actor and internet personality, said he really enjoyed the structure of meeting fans at Anime Frontier: “There are a lot of people, but not so many that you can’t move around. The line to meet people has been very consistent this whole time, but not to the point where I have to rush anybody through.
“I’ve been able to have some really nice moments, even if they’re just a couple minutes long,” Haas said. “It’s been honestly great, and I hope to come back another time.”
The exhibition hall was the most active area of the con. It featured not only food (including boba), but the artist alley, retailers, autographs, and games.
The artist alley included several LGBTQ-owned shops with unique merchandise spanning all kinds of fandoms. In addition to anime paraphernalia, one could find K-pop merchandise, clothing, video games, replica swords, collector’s items and so much more. Local romance author Jacqueline E. Smith was there selling her books and talking with attendees.
Artist and author Sarah Myer also had a booth to promote their work. This was Myer’s first time in Texas, and they said they really enjoyed getting to talk with fans. They were among many artists also accepting commissions and creating drawings on site.
Myer is the artist who draws the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Saturday Morning Adventures Comic Series written by Erik Burnham.
“It is an absolute joy to be able to illustrate his scripts, because he writes the characters that we know and love so much in new situations, and you can feel Eric’s knowledge and love for the characters coming through,” Myer said.
They explained that, while drawing, they think about the delivery of the voice actors from the cartoons and how the scenes would play out in animation. “I feel like I get to perform as those characters through the art, so it’s been a joy as a fan,” Myer said.
This year also featured the first swap meets ever held at the convention. Valerie Guerrero, organizer for the Sunday swap meet, shared that the idea originally came from their experience at San Japan, an anime convention held annually in San Antonio. The rules are that no money is allowed, only trading. Many people bring suitcases and wagons of things they want to trade.
Guerrero said they hadn’t bought anything at their table, all of it had come from swap meets.
For gamers, there were rooms set up to play Magic: The Gathering and other tabletop games as well as an assortment of video games. There were also plenty of people cosplaying as characters from their favorite video games.
On the final day of the convention J. Michael Tatum, who has voiced characters from Black Butler, Ouran High School Host Club and Attack on Titan to name a few, shared about his experience. Even though he grew up in McKinney, he said he hadn’t been back to Fort Worth since before 2020.
“It’s nice to come back,” he said. “I always tell friends, this is the most Texas town of all the Texas big cities you can come to. Fort Worth really leans into the Texas identity.
“I’m a Texas boy, through and through. I may live in LA now, but you can take the boy from Texas, but you can’t take Texas from the boy.”
Tatum has more than 20 years of voice acting experience, as well as experience directing and writing. Throughout this time, he’s gotten more comfortable in his own skin: “In the booth, to turn in a good performance, you have to be willing to embarrass yourself. When I was younger, and I was starting out, I was really concerned with what people thought. The older I get, the less I care, so I can just kind of let go and have a ball and turn in a performance that I feel good about,” he shared.
One of his favorite parts of the job is attending conventions because he enjoys the human interaction aspect.
“As voice actors, we don’t really see each other much, except at cons, because our job is very isolating. We tend to go in the booth by ourselves. It’s rare that we record together,” he explained. “Cons are great because I get to interact with fans, which I really love, because it’s just very fulfilling, and it’s nice to see my colleagues and go grab some dinner.”
As a Texas native, Tatum especially loves the Tex-Mex food here. He said some of his favorite places include the original El Phoenix in Dallas, Joe T. Garcia’s and Reata.
A few weeks ago, Tatum and his partner, Brandon McInnis, had their wedding ceremony in Texas, surrounded by family. The two met at a convention much like Anime Frontier years ago when McInnis was interpreting for the Japanese guests. They started talking, found out they both lived in the Dallas area, and the rest is history.
McInnis had experience doing stage work, and Tatum encouraged him to try out voice acting. “I may have been the one to suggest it, but I wanted it to be his thing. I told him, you’re on your own, you’re not going be a nepo baby,” Tatum said.
Now McInnis has become a full-time voice actor, appearing in shows including My Hero Academia.
Tatum also shared that his podcast hosted with Jamie Marchi, Ghoul Intentions, will be returning this winter. The two are self-described goth kids at heart, interested in morbid and macabre things, and decided in 2018 to start a podcast together. They took a break in 2022, as Marchi was writing for Gearbox, and Tatum was “busy living in LA, which is full time job,” he explained.
Now, for the first time in two years the pair will release new episodes. Tatum explained that they were deliberate in starting up again during the winter.
“Winter is the time for ghost stories. I’m a big believer in ghost stories all year round. But in Europe, Christmas time is spooky time. On Christmas Eve, it’s very traditional for families to sit around a fire and talk about ghosts and ghoulies. We thought, wouldn’t it be fun to kind of do the old-world tradition of bringing it back at Christmas?” said Tatum.
Anime Frontier provided an inclusive and exciting experience that could be enjoyed by anime fanatics and casual watchers alike.
For information on Anime Frontier 2025, go to AnimeFrontier.com.
